


the distance between you and the rest

by orphan_account



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Gunshot Wounds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-30
Updated: 2014-04-30
Packaged: 2018-01-21 08:25:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1544237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chilton puts a hand over his mouth as he studies the fabric of the blanket that's draped over his bare legs. He tastes blood and salt when he swallows and he sits back, waits with a false confidence that, now that he's awake, somebody he knows that doesn't carry a badge will walk through the doors, maybe with flowers, maybe with nothing at all, and greet him fondly, happy to see that he was, miraculously, alive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the distance between you and the rest

**Author's Note:**

> Based off of [this fantastic piece of fanart](http://ivory-spirals.tumblr.com/post/83657773978/nurse-did-did-anyone-come-to-visit-me-while-i) by [ivory-spirals](http://ivory-spirals.tumblr.com/) on tumblr. As soon as I saw it I was like “oh no this is horrible” and then I was like “this needs to be written”. I probably could have just sat on my hands and waited for someone else to make it happen but then I figured I'd just give it a shot instead. BECAUSE WHY NOT. This isn't nearly as long as I wanted it but I honestly couldn't figure out how to keep it going. It's practically impossible for me to finish anything these days though so the fact that this got done at all is astounding. As per usual with any fic I post here, I looked it over and fixed what mistakes I saw but I'm sure I missed one or two.
> 
> Title from the song of the same name by The Eye of Time.

When Fredrick Chilton is sixteen years old, one of his cousins falls into a coma after doing a slipshod gymnastics routine in her backyard that involved a lawn slippery with rainwater and a patio made out of slabs of concrete. His mother insists that he come visit her, but he's disinterested because she isn't awake so what in the world could there be for him to do once at her bedside. The type of inane chatter that was expected of him wasn't something he was capable of without an audience because what was the point of talking if nobody could hear you? His mother tells him of brainwaves that she couldn't possibly know anything about, explains that people like his cousin may be asleep but they aren't deaf.

“They hear you,” she says, as they sit side-by-side in the car, waiting at a traffic light. “Talking to them can help them come back.”

“People talk to plants to make them grow and think that works, too.”

“Are you calling your cousin a plant?”

“If you'd like.”

Chilton waits outside his cousin's room, flipping through a magazine that's six months old and whose pages are sticky and stained. The words they say to her are murmured, childish and sweet and, in the end, she never opens her eyes.

His mother says that, despite all of this, it's good that there were so many people there for her while she wasted away in her hospital bed.

“Even if you're in a coma,” she reminds Chilton, “Knowing that you've gotten visitors is the most important thing.”

Chilton assumes that the most important thing would be surviving but to each his own, he supposes.

\- -

The inside of his mouth tastes like acid and metal but the first thing he notices upon waking up is the sound of machines tied around his arms and pressed into his clammy skin and he's pulled back into the dark, swirling hole that was a vivisection that left an itching scar along his belly and few less pieces of him under his flesh. He manages to pull himself out of the pitch black, but what he finds when he reaches the light isn't nearly as comforting as he had hoped.

He's in a bed, alone in a room that was awash with various shades of white and blue and a glint of the florescent light off of the tile floor glitters in his eyes. A heart monitor beeps softly over his shoulder and he spends what could have been hours watching silhouettes slide in a blur past his closed door and he knows what morphine feels like (or, at least, what it's supposed to) and his fascination with shrouded figures is simply a side effect.

A tongue is run experimentally, slowly, exploring every inch, and what he finds are tightly stitched together threads in either cheek, painful blisters from small burns, and the gaping holes where teeth used to be firmly planted in his jaw. He ground what teeth were left together, feeling nothing but air in the spots they were missing and he tried to open, to let words tumble free but he couldn't. How would they know he was awake? How could he tell them? He's been in so many hospitals and yet he was utterly lost.

There were other questions lurking in the back of his mind, queries about how he got there, who had shot him, and what the FBI still thought of him, if he was once again a psychiatrist or if he was considered a depraved and savage serial killer. A lift of one arm and then the other was enough to answer the final question as he felt cold steel wrapped around his right wrist, the handcuff attached to the side of his bed. He twisted and pulled at it as if he thought he could break free or have his hand smoothly slip out, but all it did was clang and clatter and, eventually, he wore himself out fighting.

A nurse shows up awhile later, surprise making her small body tense as she sees him awake and she runs out of the room, calling for a doctor.

His injuries are explained to him gently by a tall man with a white coat pulled too tightly over his frame, as if they didn't make it in his size and this was the closest he could find that fit. He tells Chilton that he's only been asleep for twelve hours, that the stitches will have to be in for at least a week, that the burns required a solution he'd have to keep in his mouth for at least four times a day. He wouldn't be given new teeth until the stitches were gone, until the burns had vanished, until the swelling had gone down.

“It might be difficult,” the doctor says, “but you can try to speak if you'd like.”

But Chilton had nothing to say—not yet—so he didn't.

No one made even a brief mention of the handcuffs and the doctor spoke as if he spent hours outside rehearsing how he would talk, clear and calm and normal, to the man suspected of being a murderer. They left him a few minutes later, assuring him that a nurse would be back soon with something to eat. 

It was like they couldn't leave fast enough.

\- -

The nurse who fed him had her red hair tightly pulled back into a perfectly rounded bun and Chilton figured she must have only just gone on shift because nobody in her profession could keep her hair that perfect for so long. He was given oatmeal, applesauce, and a cup of water with a straw that choked him as he tried to suck the lukewarm liquid from it. She stays to make sure he eats it and doesn't need help (at least, that's what she told him but he knew it was also to make sure he didn't do anything to himself with his utensils) and, when he finishes, she hands him the first of many servings of a clear liquid that stung as it floated inside his ruined mouth.

He spits it into a basin, wiping his lips with the back of the hand that would reach that far and the nurse seemed to hesitate before leaving, as if she wanted to say something or she expected something instead from him. He wasn't going to give her the satisfaction but then a question, louder and harsher than all the others, was pounding around his brain and he couldn't force himself to avoid it.

“Excuse me,” he starts and he hates the way he sounds, tongue sloppy, looking for teeth that weren't there, unable to pull his cheeks too far without a throbbing sort of pain. She doesn't acknowledge him and he wonders if perhaps she didn't hear him, but then she turns her head, just slightly, as if gesturing for him to continue. “Did anyone come visit me while I was out?” It takes him far too long to get the entire thought out in the open and the nurse looks to the floor, her fingers tangling together uselessly in front of her.

“No, Doctor Chilton. I don't believe so.”

“Oh. I see.”

“I was told to inform you that the police will be coming to pick you up soon.” She scratches at a spot on her pale arm. “The doctor at the prison hospital will be able to help you.” She leaves without looking back.

Nobody. Not a single person? That was impossible. He refused to accept that—

Chilton puts a hand over his mouth as he studies the fabric of the blanket that's draped over his bare legs. He tastes blood and salt when he swallows and he sits back, waits with a false confidence that, now that he's awake, somebody he knows that doesn't carry a badge will walk through the doors, maybe with flowers, maybe with nothing at all, and greet him fondly, happy to see that he was, miraculously, alive.

He hears his mother's voice, the same way he did when he was a child during that afternoon when he guffawed at the idea of visiting someone who wouldn't appreciate it and he feels sick.

He falls asleep and, when he wakes, it's early morning and there's a police officer standing on one side of the bed, the same red-haired nurse from before on the other. The officer promises him with a sneer that they'll allow him to eat before they cart him away.

Chilton asks the nurse again if, perhaps, somebody came to him while he was dormant, but she shakes her head. The officer, with his buzz-cut and chipmunk teeth, laughs without pause.

“Who the fuck would want to visit someone like you?”

\- -

Three weeks later, Chilton is sitting in the corner of his cell, the strings pulled from his skin and porcelain teeth pushed into his gums and, through the fog of interrogations, of lawyers with ratty suits and comb-overs, of reporters with flashing cameras and crackling microphones, he hears the question the officer had taunted him with at the hospital.

He still doesn't have an answer.


End file.
